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The Dust Bowl

Extensive farming of the semi-arid Great Plains, together with a prolonged period of drought, caused severe soil erosion in the 1930's. The soil was blown away by the wind and formed huge dense clouds of dust. This affected parts of eastern Colorado, Kansas, northern New Mexico, Oklahoma and northern Texas, and led to the area becoming known as the "Dust Bowl". Coupled with the thirties depression, this caused enormous economic hardship. Many impoverished farming families made their way west from the Dust Bowl along US66 - Route 66, "The Dustbowl Highway" - to the crop fields, fruit orchards and wine growing areas of California in search of work.

The events inspired John Steinbeck's book "The Grapes of Wrath" which was also made into a film, many of protest singer Woody Guthrie's songs such as "Pastures of Plenty", and to some extent James Blish's "Cities in Flight" science fiction book series which features the "Okie" cities - from the name given to the refugees from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl era.

The hero of "The Grapes of Wrath" was Tom Joad, hence the title of the recent Bruce Springsteen album "The Ghost of Tom Joad" which largely concerns itself with rural poverty in the USA and the plight of the Mexican immigrant workers in California's crop growing areas.

Several measures were taken in an attempt to prevent the problem recurring, but dry spells in recent years have proved that these measures have not been totally successful.

There is a vivid description of the Dust Bowl era in one chapter of James Michener's "Centennial".

For another comment on the Dust Bowl, see the "Wrong Side Up" story (for the state of North Dakota) on the American Folktales web site (external link verified Sep-02).

Randy Francis' University dissertation on the Dust Bowl: The Texas Dust Bowl In Historical Perspective: What Happened and Could It Happen Again?

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About this personal web site JohnCletheroe

EMail me While I have an interest in the subject of the Dust Bowl, I am not an expert. Therefore I regrettably cannot offer any information on the subject other than that which appears on these pages.

Most recently modified 28-Sep-02